Female Gatekeeper

Dear Readers, today I actually managed to shuffle out to the garden with my pal S, and watched as a pair of Gatekeeper butterflies circled and danced over the hemp agrimony. It’s been a funny old year for butterflies – I’ve seen quite a few Large Whites, and some Holly Blues early on, but I haven’t seen the usual fall of Peacocks and Red Admirals and Commas. Maybe it’s because of the late spring, and it’s slightly worrying because so many of the plants that they would normally nectar from are already going over.

I love Gatekeepers – they look like little slices of flying tangerine, flickering through the air. The males have a dark stripe across their upper wings, and it’s believed that these might release a pheromone that attracts the female. I couldn’t get close enough to see the sex of ‘my’ butterflies today, but by their behaviour I suspect at least one of them was a male, as they were either chasing a female, or trying to see off another male. In Gatekeepers, the males emerge first and set up a little territory, usually above a group of nectar plants (another reason to plant hemp agrimony, which they seem to love).

Gatekeeper (wings closed)

I wasn’t intending to do the Big Butterfly Count today, but as I actually saw a couple of butterflies I thought I’d log them – I do love a bit of citizen science, and it’s something that I can do without two fully-functioning legs. Having done it, I thought I’d have a look at what had been discovered in the rest of East Finchley, and very interesting it was too. 15 people have done 43 counts in all so far, and 93 butterflies have been observed. The top five species were:

• Large White (27)
• Small White (23)
• Gatekeeper (22)
• Red Admiral (6)
• Speckled Wood (3)

I’m not surprised at all about the first three, but I’d like to know where my Red Admirals have gone – I shall have to hang out next to the Buddleia in the front garden and see what I can see. You can do more than one butterfly count, so that gives me a few more opportunities before the count closes on 4th August.

To see Speckled Wood you’d probably have to hang out in a wooded area, so I suspect that someone has been butterfly spotting in Cherry Tree Wood, Coldfall Wood or the Cemetery.

Speckled Wood

Now, just out of curiosity I decided that I’d enlarge the area to include Hampstead Garden Suburb, to see what the butterfly count was like there. And very interesting it was too! In this count, Gatekeepers were top species (beating Large and Small White), but suddenly there was a large number of Meadow Browns.

Meadow Brown in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery

I’m wondering if this is because my enlarged map includes Long Lane Pasture – this is an area with an actual meadow, and it might point up the benefits that this habitat can provide (one was also spotted in the meadow at Muswell Hill Playing Fields. Goodness, looking at the maps could become a bit compulsive, and it’s great fun to see what else has been found in your neighbourhood. All you have to do is click here, and then you can use your location, or choose one. To the right of the Boundary box there’s a blue symbol – click on this, click on each point in the map that you want your area to cover, and double-click to finish. Simples!

Has anyone else done the Big Butterfly Count yet? Any thoughts?

And in other news, I’m becoming an expert on Olympic gymnastics, swimming, BMX biking, shooting, triathlon and windsurfing. If you’re going to be stuck on the sofa, this is not a bad time for it :-).